A RESPONSE TO THE SOCIAL ACTION TREND IN EVANGELICALISM (pt. 9)

This is the final installment (part 9) of an important series titled, "Regaining Our Focus: A Response to the Social Action Trend in Evangelical Missions" by two veteran missionaries.

Summing Up

It is possible to view the evangelical church’s renewed preoccupation with social action as merely a difference in emphasis. And that is undoubtedly true in some cases. Because of the varying gifts in the body of Christ, some churches and missionaries will focus on mercy more than others: that’s to be expected. However, the social justice debate is not merely a squabble over whether the church should add one lump or two of mercy to its ecclesiastical tea. Ultimately, it is about making social action and gospel proclamation co-equal partners in the church’s mission. We believe that is not merely a difference in emphasis: it’s a different ecclesiology altogether.

Results and Solutions

What has been the effect of all this in Africa? It’s an oversimplification, but the result is the wrong missionaries doing the wrong things. The African church needs help. Good at celebration and community, the African church (with a few notable exceptions) needs all the help it can get when it comes to church planting, spiritual depth, and theological training. However, the West is currently sending primarily two kinds of missionaries to Africa: first, missionaries who are unprepared to truly help the African church—wonderful, compassionate, college-age girls who have come to do orphan care;and second, missionaries who are underprepared to help the African church—enthusiastic men or couples who are eager to lead mercy projects, but whose lack of theological training and ministry experience means that they can offer little help of real significance to the African church. The work they do is emotionally rewarding for the missionaries and for the churches that send them. However, fewer and fewer of the kinds of missionaries who will make a long-term difference in Africa—Bible translators, church planters, and leadership trainers—are being sent.

A RESPONSE TO THE SOCIAL ACTION TREND (pt. 7)

This is part 7 of a series titled, "Regaining Our Focus: A Response to the Social Action Trend in Evangelical Missions"
by two veteran missionaries from Africa.
Specific Biblical Concerns (to the social action trend in evangelicalism)-

7. A Misunderstanding of Jesus’ Ministry and Miracles:

Those who hope to make social action and gospel proclamation two wings of the same bird claim that they are imitating the earthly ministry of Jesus. Jesus, they contend, not only preached repentance, He also focused on relieving the physical needs and the oppression of the economically downtrodden in Palestine. He healed their sicknesses, filled their stomachs, and dropped a coin in the outstretched hands of the poor.

While the Scripture implies that Jesus did express mercy to the poor on a personal level (Matt 26:9; John 13:29), it is clear from the Gospels that Jesus started no orphanages, established no poverty relief funds, no low-cost housing schemes, no well-digging programs, and set no prisoners free (not even John the Baptist). Neither did Jesus instruct or train His disciples to do so. That doesn’t mean that it’s intrinsically wrong for Christians to be involved in such work. But it certainly makes suspect the argument that, based on Jesus’ example, the church should make social action central to her mission. Personal expressions of mercy and church-organized social action programs are not the same thing: Jesus exemplified one, not the other. In fact, the purpose statements of Jesus’ earthly ministry always focused on proclamation and on His substitutionary death for sinners: “Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for” (Mark 1:38). “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:43).

A RESPONSE TO THE SOCIAL ACTION TREND IN EVANGELICAL MISSIONS (pt. 6)

Is Tim Keller's view on Missions and the Local Church Biblically Sound?

This is part 6 of a series titled, "Regaining Our Focus: A Response to the Social Action Trend in Evangelical Missions" by two veteran missionaries from Africa. It is one of the most thought provoking articles I've read in a long time.

Specific Concerns (with regards to the Social Action Trend in Missions):

6. Defective Hermeneutics

"The arguments used to promote a social justice philosophy of the church and missions are often based on transparently deficient hermeneutics. The result is arguments that are rhetorically compelling, but biblically suspect. Peter Naylor critiques Tim Keller’s handling of key passages by saying, “He approaches the text with a predetermined agenda that distorts his interpretation.” As Richard Holst points out, Keller’s occasionally defective hermeneutics—especially his habit of overworking metaphors and of sliding into allegory—are the source of many of his questionable views (Richard Holst, “Timothy Keller’s Hermeneutic: an Example for the Church to Follow?”, chapter 5 in Engaging With Keller).

This interpretative error seems endemic to the social justice movement. It is not possible to list and respond to every hermeneutical misstep made by the advocates of social action; however, typical mistakes include the following: Passages about mercy within the church are often interpreted as if they were about social action projects outside the church.The biblical word justice is wrongly defined and its meaning is confusingly intermingled with the word generosity.  The words oppression and poverty are equated. For this reason, David Wells calls political correctness “fake piety,” (Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 8).

A RESPONSE TO THE SOCIAL ACTION TREND IN EVANGELICAL MISSIONS (pt. 3)

Concern 2 (to the social action trend in evangelical missions): Is the Underlying Theory Flawed?

While Jesus commanded believers to love their neighbors and to care for the poor, we don’t see that the New Testament church (either by dictate or example) fulfilled that command by organizing itself to carry out social action projects directed at the general betterment of Roman society. In other words, we believe that the theory of social action missions is suspect from the start. If anything, the apostles seemed to avoid social reform projects directed at the world in favor of preaching the gospel to the world.

We ardently believe that Christians can and should be involved in meaningful demonstrations of compassion—everything from giving a sandwich to a homeless person to working at an orphanage. In this article we are dealing with a different issue: the idea that social reform and the gospel are equal partners in Christian mission.  We will develop our reasons for rejecting this dual-track view of the church’s mission in a moment.

Concern 3:  Is the Mission of the Church Being Unintentionally Neglected?

All true evangelicals are committed to keeping the gospel, expository preaching, and the church the main things; however, this becomes difficult to do in the social action model of the church and missions. Social action projects are like black holes— they have a habit of sucking in all the ecclesiastical resources within reach of their gravitational pull. While the theory states that the gospel, preaching, and the church are the main things, in regard to budgets, planning, staff, and effort, what’s actually first is all too clear.

Even the proponents of social action acknowledge this problem. For example, Keller admits, “Churches that . . . try to take on all the levels of doing justice often find that the work of community renewal and social justice overwhelms the work of preaching, teaching and nurturing the congregation."

In response to Keller’s admission, Naylor writes, "Keller speaks as if there is a certain point at which this becomes problematic, but he does not demonstrate how this effect is not already in operation the moment the church becomes involved in this kind of work at all."

A RESPONSE TO THE SOCIAL ACTION TREND IN EVANGELICAL MISSIONS (pt. 2)

Series Summary- "Today churches and missionaries are being told that to imitate the ministry of Jesus they must add social justice to their understanding of the church’s mission. As pastors and missions committees embrace the idea that social action and gospel proclamation are “two wings of the same bird,” the kind of work that they send their missionaries to do changes, and this has a negative effect on world missions. This article highlights those negative effects in an African context, offers historical, practical, and biblical critiques of the trend, and redirects the church’s attention to understanding and fulfilling the Great Commission in the way the apostles did in Acts and the Epistles." 

This is part 2 of a series titled, "Regaining Our Focus: A Response to the Social Action Trend in Evangelical Missions" by two veteran missionaries from Africa.

Sources of the Current Social Action Trend in Missions- "The tug of war between proclamation-oriented missions and social action is not new; however, it has become a prominent debate again in our generation. Recent key voices in evangelical circles enthusiastically promoting social action in missions include John Stott, Tim Keller, and popular Emergent authors.  John Stott’s influence has been felt both through his leading role in the Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization and through his many books.  At the 1974 Lausanne Conference, more than 2,000 attendees signed the Lausanne Covenant which declared that “evangelism and socio-political involvement are part of our Christian duty.”  However, the Covenant also explicitly said that, of the two, gospel proclamation is of higher priority: “In the church’s mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary.”

In spite of this clear statement, an astonishing event took place on the last day of the conference. Approximately 200 conference attendees drafted a statement entitled “Radical Discipleship” that gave social action equal status with gospel proclamation. While it was too late to change the wording of the Lausanne Covenant, Stott (who had chaired the committee that drafted the Covenant) publically affirmed the alternative Radical Discipleship position the last night of the conference. It was a watershed moment for world evangelization, essentially redefining the church’s mission.

After the 1974 conference, in the face of resistance from Billy Graham and others, Stott continued to press for an equal role for social action in Christian missions.  By 1982, the triumph of Stott’s view was clear. In that year he chaired a Lausanne committee tasked to write a report on the subject. Under Stott’s guidance, the report again recommended that the church make social action and evangelism equal partners in the fulfilling of the Great Commission: They are like the two blades of a pair of scissors or the two wings of a bird.  This partnership is clearly seen in the public ministry of Jesus who not only preached the gospel but fed the hungry and healed the sick. In his ministry, kerygma (proclamation) and diakonia (service) went hand in hand. His words explained his works, and his works dramatized his words. Both were expressions of his compassion for people, and both should be ours.

A RESPONSE TO THE SOCIAL ACTION TREND IN EVANGELICALISM (pt. 1)

Is this the point of these passages of Scripture?

This series of articles is co-Authored by Joel James, D. Min., Pastor at Grace Fellowship, Pretoria South Africa AND Brian Biedebach, D.Min., Pastor at International Fellowship Bible Church, Lilongwe Malawi.  Both authors have served as missionaries in Africa for over 20 years.

Article Summary- Today churches and missionaries are being told that to imitate the ministry of Jesus they must add social justice to their understanding of the church’s mission. As pastors and missions committees embrace the idea that social action and gospel proclamation are “two wings of the same bird,” the kind of work that they send their missionaries to do changes, and this has a negative effect on world missions. This article highlights those negative effects in an African context, offers historical, practical, and biblical critiques of the trend, and redirects the church’s attention to understanding and fulfilling the Great Commission in the way the apostles did in Acts and the Epistles.

Introduction- "Evangelical missions in Africa is changing. Or more accurately, it has changed.  In the past, the bulk of the theologically conservative missionaries in Africa came to do church planting and leadership training. No longer. Today many of the new missionaries being sent are focused on social relief, with the church tacked on as a theological addendum. By all appearances there has been a mega-shift in evangelical missions away from church planting and leadership training toward social justice or social action.

Social action and social justice are elastic, elusive, and basically interchangeable terms that include, for example, caring for the poor and promoting just government that keeps the wealthy from strong– arming the vulnerable.